The embodiment relates to a touch panel.
A touch panel including an input unit (pointing device) has been extensively used in displays of electronic devices such as personal digital assistants (PDA), a notebook computer, office automation (OA) device, a medical device, or an automobile navigation system. For example, a capacitive touch panel, a resistive touch panel, an electromagnetic induction touch panel, and an optical touch panel are generally known in the art. Recently, the resistive touch panel has been extensively used.
A front surface of the touch panel is generally divided into an active area to which a touch command of a user can be input and an unactive area to which the touch command of the user cannot be input. A bezel is included in the unactive area.
The bezel is provided therein with a wire electrode to connect a sensing electrode. Generally, the bezels may be formed at upper, lower, left, and right sides of a touch panel, respectively. Since a use region of a user is limited at the front surface of the touch panel due to the bezels formed at left and right sides of the touch panel, the user may feel inconvenience when using the touch panel.
Accordingly, a touch panel having no bezels at the left and right sides of the touch panel has been developed. However, if the bezels formed at the left and right sides of the touch panel are removed, wire electrodes formed at the left and right bezels must be formed at upper and lower sides of the touch panels, respectively. In this case, the wire electrode must be formed by using a material the same as that of the sensing electrode, for example, indium tin oxide (ITO).
However, if the left and right bezels are removed and the wire electrode is formed by an ITO material, a current value of the sensing electrode becomes gradually reduced as the sensing electrode is located away from the wire electrode or a bonding part provided at a top end or a bottom end of the touch panel.
That is, when the wire electrode is formed by using a transparent conductive material such as the ITO material, a sensitivity of the sensing electrode is not uniform over the whole area of the touch panel because a resistance value of the wire electrode is increased as compared with a resistance value of a metal wire electrode.
Therefore, a touch panel having a uniform sensitivity is required when bezels at left and right sides of the touch panels are removed.